East London residents warned of surface-to-air missiles sited on their roofs for the Olympics

Residents of a gated community in east London got Ministry of Defence leaflets through their doors advising them that their roofs might be commandeered for surface-to-air missiles during the London Olympics this summer. The MoD assured them that the missiles on their roof "will only be authorised for active use following specific orders from the highest levels of government in response to a confirmed and extreme security threat". Gosh, the Olympics sure are wonderful.

Journalist Brian Whelan, a resident at the flats, said: "They are going to have a test run next week, putting high velocity missiles on the roof just above our apartment and on the back of it they're stationing police and military in the tower of the building for two months.

"It's a private, gated community... We have an MoD leaflet saying the building is the only suitable place in the area.

"It says there will be 10 officers plus police present 24/7. I'm not sure if they are going to live in the building."

I'm just waiting for some of our local gang-kids to swipe a few of these.

Charlie Stross points out that a wily terrorist who buzzes east London with an RC airplane and triggers a launch would succeed in tricking the MoD into showering a crowded residential area with blazing supersonic shrapnel. For bonus points, aim the RC plane to get the missile to shower the white-hot shrapnel over a crowded train station.

“I’m just waiting for some of our local gang-kids to swipe a few of these.”

I’m sure you are joking, but within every joke are some true feelings.

If they were to leave the Olympics unguarded, you would blame them as negligent.

“Gosh, the Olypmics sure are wonderful.” They are. You seem sarcastic though, as if the evil people who might want to inflict violence on a high-profile event influence the way you view the event itself.

And the RC plane part? God, that isn’t even worth breaking down. This article is just dissent for dissent’s sake.

“Hope that there are no airborne threats” is exactly the correct behaviour for this situation, and almost every other situation. This is the kind of behaviour that makes perfect sense in a superhero movie. In real life it indicates a stupid, insane inability to make rational risk/reward judgements.

Even if you are worried honestly about air threats, couldn’t you just, ya know, declare a no-fly zone or a restricted-fly zone? Anyone not where they’re supposed to be is gonna be pretty damn obvious with modern radar systems.

And what type of air attack would even be feasible? It’s not like military hardware is gonna show up unless one nation or another really wants to start a war. So you’ve basically got civilian aircraft, which are already reasonably monitored, and which, combined with the no-fly or restricted-fly zone, wouldn’t be a problem.

To be perfectly frank, I’d imagine the best chance of getting in via air would be small, hard to detect aircraft such as ultralights or drones, because they don’t show up on radar nearly as well. But you can’t exactly cause a lot of destruction with an ultralight, and again, drones are military controlled.

Much more severe a threat would be something like a mortar attack – they’re one of the cheapest, simplest, most common and easily attainable military weapons I can think of. They also can’t be stopped once launced.

Smuggle in a couple of crates of tubes and shells, preferably by sea to avoid border crossings, then arm several dozen small, one- or two-man teams. Have them converge around the location of your choice, and then rain down ordinance on unsuspecting crowds from miles away. A team could set up in an alleyway, on a roof, in a park, under a bridge, anywhere you like so long as they have just enough clearance for indirect fire. They set up the tube, aim, drop a couple shells, and skedaddle. Over and done in 60 seconds, with devastating results thanks to synchronized mass bombardment.

I mean come on. I’m a goddamn armchair theorist here and I can think of much more realistic and severe scenarios than vague “air threats”.

Eldritch has made exactly my point, but phrased much better. Exactly what he says. ‘Hope that there are no airborne threats’ is not exactly a difficult hope. It’s comparable to ‘hope that the sun continues be a great big hot plasma ball in the sky’.

At some point it’s worth to step back and consider how much the downside overshadows what little is left of the good. London is certainly making it clear that my country should never ever want to host the Olympics. It used to be fun once, but it’s just not worth it anymore.

The entire Olympics site is directly under the standard landing approach path to Heathrow, one of the busiest airports in the world. That’s the location that these missiles are going to be fired. So, the area that is going to be “protected” by firing surface to air missile is also going to be full of commercial aircraft.

Really, I would hope the problems with this attempt at theatrical “safety” would be apparent.

No, dissent for dissent’s sake would be claiming that the UK should scrap all of its security and depend on the Power of Love to protect it.

No one is saying that. They are simply pointing out the absurdity of mounting StA missiles in the kill range of millions of civilians, without any clear threat from a force that is realistically able to field any aircraft.

One of the problems of managing terrorist threats is that politicians and security have almost no incentive to make rational judgments on deploying security measures; they usually end up just hitting the go level and breaking it off.

No, please, continue to indulge your masturbatory Tom Clancy fantasies about firing off surface-to-air missiles into one of the busiest airspaces in the world as a way of defending against made-up-threats. It’s truly fascinating.

Not to mention blowing up an aircraft over a populated city like London. You might take away their intended target, but that might be a small victory at that point.

Likely this is uber last resort foolery, or simply a bit of window dressing security theatre to A) assure people of safety, and B) as a possible deterrent for folks to even try something… “See we might as well not even try that, they have SAMs!”

That’s an empty statement. Everything has negative consequences. You seem to believe that this is a correct and proportionate response to a real-life threat.

In my careful, detailed, highly comprehensive reading of your statements, I notice the following sentence:

“If they were to leave the Olympics unguarded, you would blame them as negligent.”

The only reasonable interpretation of this is failing to mount surface-to-air missiles on the top of residential buildings, aimed into one of the busiest airspaces in the world, is tantamount to “leav[ing] the Olympics unguarded.”

I believe the ’emergency powers’ you are referring to were first laid down by George Orwell. Because if you really believe that there is a good reason for this action, you should seriously consider suicide just so you can remove your own self as a threat. In fact, perhaps we should just launch a massive pre-emptive nuclear strike on the world at large and be done with it.

Why do we even have laws? All we need is a scribbled note that says “we have power and you don’t.” Every government official, every policeman and everyone who can afford unlimited lawyers fees will be issued with one. It would save a lot of paperwork.

Sheesh. If England is so sure that they have enemies hiding under every rock waiting to bomb them at every turn, maybe they should instead consider becoming a nation that people don’t want to wipe off the map.

Right, but remember that the UK got out of the Imperialism while the getting was good; now they control most of the world’s banking and a huge portion of its wealth *while* not feeling the need to police and/or occupy the rest of the world.

I think you’re right Matt, and it’s possible Britain will return to that. But like France or Germany, I would bet that their elites have learned some painful lessons about imperialism. America, while holding on to it’s geopolitical power has been suckered into the role of world police and I doubt Britain will stand for that any length of time.

“I’m genuinely beginning to think that the value of the Olympics to the UK is more about selling UK technologies, both military and of social control. It’s looking more like a gigantic public arms fair than a sporting event.”

I was just thinking the same thing. If each Olympics becomes a similar security theater nightmare, I don’t think any country will want to host the Olympics. Maybe some sensible less developed country will do a good job in 2020.

But why stop with the SAMs? Why pick only one specific massively unlikely sociopathic plot to defend against? Especially, why pick only the one that’s hardest to defend against and least likely?

We should spend an extra few million and equip every resident of London with a gas mask. (Poison gas is way cheaper and easier to spread than an incoming plane.) Wouldn’t want to say to the survivor’s relatives “well we thought of that, but it was a bit of a fuss so we didn’t bother”. Better safe than sorry.

Better put sniffer dogs at every corner to stop explosives. (Way cheaper and easier to get than a plane, also more dangerous. And the sniffer dogs don’t actually work.)

Remove all car parking, to prevent car bombs. Inconvenient, sure, but we wouldn’t want to risk missing a threat just in case of making a fuss. Better safe than sorry.

Come to think of it, the tube is much more vulnerable. We should put blast doors on every station, and search every passenger. Sure, it’s a bit of a fuss, but we wouldn’t want to miss an obvious area of attack. Better safe than sorry.

Better just lock the entire population of London up in advance. Because, you know, safer.

Tactically speaking, an expensive publicly-known defence that only works against one specific attack is completely useless. A real attacker will just pick a different attack, at cost zero.

When it comes to governments, ‘better safe’ is always, always, always the excuse that makes you sorry. Usually too late.

Charlie Stross is, in this case, talking nonsense. Even if his model plane ruse worked – and I strongly suspect there will be no firing these without visual identification of target by spotter, then there would only be the weight of the missile and the plane falling down – wikipedia suggests a Stinger missile (for comparison) weighs 10 KG – and their terminal velocity would be nowhere near supersonic. You would be better of throwing some bricks off a tower block.

Of course, if they were to shoot down a 747, that would be a different story. Seems like a reasonable last line of defence to me…

I agree that nobody’s firing these things without visual ID. Assuming we somehow have command and control good enough to separate out a threatening 747 from the civilian traffic in time (we almost certainly don’t), and send up a spotter to check out a suspicious plane (how many flights per day come into London?)…

…if you shoot a 747 with a Stinger (or, being in the UK, more likely a Starstreak), then at best you’ve converted a massive incoming explosive missile aimed at an urban area to a massive incoming explosive missile with one wing somewhat broken, aimed at a slightly different bit of an urban area.

They might be mounting something heavier than this, of course. But they’re still not likely to get the kill order in time. (And if the system’s fast and hair-trigger enough that they could, it’s probably fast enough to be far more dangerous to civilians than the hypothetical bad guys could ever be.)

I’d be stupefied if the President of the United States isn’t protected by something similar at all times. In fact there was that story a while ago about the Stinger missile kept in the Secret Service office in the World Trade Center.

Also, besides being outside the US, I still don’t see how the 3rd Amendment applies – the missiles, if deployed, will be on the roof of a water tower, and while it will be on private property (as part of a housing estate), it’s not in anyone’s private home.

To guard against highly unlikely airborne threats, the London security types decided to place Surface to Air missiles on a few rooftops, close to the flight path of Heathrow. Presumably this will allow them to shoot down any hijacked airliners over a residential area, rather than in an arena or something.

Then, in the interest of community relations, they told the people whose houses they would be arming. Not only did they tell them, they informed them roughly how many police would be guarding each of the sites. Each of these sites will also presumably have a few people who are trained in using the missiles.

Now, a terrorist group wishing to inflict harm does not need to actually acquire, install or import these jetliner-killers themselves. They merely need to plan and coordinate an attack on the ones that are already in place. Conveniently (for the bad people), the police have been kind enough to inform them of where and what the security will be like.